The Obscure Charm Of The Plutocracy

..and here is what Mitt Romney’s people will be attempting to defuse on Monday after Mitt’s Hamptonspalooza:

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.

“We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”

Laura R. Schwartz of New Jersey, the woman inside the Range Rover, complained that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president, a slight to the country, in her eyes. “I don’t think he is good for Israel,” she said. Mr. Romney, she said, “is a fresh face.”

A few cars back, Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Habor, N.Y., long a favorite of the well-off and well-known in the Hamptons, could barely contain his displeasure with Mr. Obama. “He is a socialist. His idea is find a problem that doesn’t exist and get government to intervene,” Mr. Conklin said from inside a gold-colored Mercedes as his wife, Carol Simmons, nodded in agreement.

Ms. Simmons paused to highlight what she said was her husband’s generous spirit: “Tell them who’s on your yacht this weekend! Tell him!”

Over Mr. Conklin’s objections, Ms. Simmons disclosed that a major executive from Miramax, the movie company, was on the 75-foot yacht, because, she said, there were no rooms left at the hotel.

In Southampton, where Mr. Koch lives, the local police spent much of Sunday gearing up for as many as 200 protesters, a rare sight in these precincts. It would be “the first large-scale protest” the village has ever had, Chief Tom Cummings said.

The packed schedule of fund-raisers seemed to create some confusion among the guests. As he pulled up outside Mr. Perelman’s estate, Ms. Schwartz’s companion initially wondered if he was the home of the Koch brothers.